[Air-L] Imagined Communities

[Gary Hall]

Philippa,

Just in case it's of any help, I've recently finished a piece on the same subject (i.e. the relation between new technologies and the construction of national identities). It's due to come out shortly as 'WikiNation: On Peace and Conflict in the Middle East', Cultural Politics, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2008, pp.5-26. I've provided an abstract for you below. 

But a wikified, open access, open editing and free content version of the whole essay is available at:

http://hyper-cyprus.pbwiki.com/Hyper-Cyprus

Gary


*Abstract*

This article begins by analysing critically the usefulness of the recent 
political philosophy of Chantal Mouffe for reconceptualising ideas of 
peace and conflict. It takes as its focus for doing so the situation of 
the Middle East. It proceeds to show how Mouffe’s radical democratic 
politics is actually just another form of the liberalism of Habermas and 
Rawls she positions her theory against. The essay then explores the 
potential digital media hold for making affirmative, affective, 
hyper-political interventions in specific contents and singular 
situations. In particular, it advocates using the wiki medium to 
experiment with new ways of organising institutions, cultures, 
communities and countries which do not uncritically repeat the reductive 
adherence to democracy, hegemony and Western, bourgeois, liberal 
humanism identified in Mouffe, but which can also be located in the 
institution of academic criticism more widely.

-- 
Gary Hall
Professor of Media and Performing Arts
School of Art and Design, Coventry University
Director of the Cultural Studies Open Access Archive
http://www.culturemachine.net/csearch
Co-founder of the Open Humanities Press
http://www.openhumanitiespress.org
My website http://www.garyhall.info

New book: Digitize This Book!
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/H/hall_digitize.html

Pirate Philosophy - Steal This!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YkXDTQ7iFs